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Yui did her best to make their house – no, their home, Gabimaru corrected himself – as ordinary as possible. Normal. Welcoming.
When he entered the house on light feet, placing his steps carefully not be noticed by her, the corridor smelled of fresh laundry. Candles, already half burnt, were lit in silent welcome. There was a single flower in a vase by the entrance, a shy white camellia that was missing one petal.
Gabimaru took off his sandals, scooped them up into his arms and sneaked along the hallway, careful not to drip blood anywhere onto the floor. He stopped at the washroom, dove into its darkness, and hastily pulled his robes off, throwing them, together with his sandals, onto the floor. He bowed over the basin filled with water that always stood here and submerged his entire head.
Holding his breath, Gabimaru ran his hands through his hair and over his face underwater, making sure that he washed off every last drop of blood that might have splattered on him during his mission. Yui wouldn’t see it tonight, Gabimaru would make sure of that. He hated when she did and forced herself to smile for him anyway. He hated bringing the stench of blood into the home that smelled of fresh laundry and melting wax.
When he finally pulled his head out of the basin again, the water that was dripping off his head in a thin shower back onto the water surface below was clear and bloodless, good enough evidence that Gabimaru was clean again. He used his discarded robes to rub his hair dry, patted down his bakama pants in search of any suspiciously sticky red spots, and only then exited the washing room into the hallway again.
Suddenly feeling nervous, Gabimaru shifted his weight from one leg to the other, folding his traitorous robes tightly against his chest so that the clean side was turned outwards and they held his sandals in a cocoon inside. His eyes were trained on the single flower further down the corridor, its head peeking past the corner as if to look what was keeping him.
“Yui?” he called and froze, straining his hearing for an answer. He was listening for movement in the house, the sounds of any activity, the voice of his wife calling out his name. When he didn’t hear anything, Gabimaru felt his shoulders tense. Where was Yui?
He walked down the hallway with the grace of a predator, his bundle of clothes still pressed against his upper body. Usually, he might’ve left it at the entrance door to have his arms free in case of dangers lurking around the corner, but Gabimaru didn’t want to leave the bloodied robes next to the single harmed flower that had welcomed him home. He didn’t want to stain it, not when Yui had put obvious effort into placing it there.
One of the little joys of ordinary life - she might say. Gabimaru would have to make sure to ask her about it. He would like to know where she had plucked the flower - maybe next time, he would have the opportunity to bring home more of them.
Gabimaru sneaked along the hallway, slipping into habits he could only shake at home, and peeked into adjacent rooms in search for signs of Yui, all the while listening intently for traitorous sounds that did not belong into their home: signs of intruders or attackers. They never made it here, but who knew what the village chief had in mind when it came to keeping his blade, Gabimaru the Hollow, sharp?
However, Gabimaru didn’t find any, nor did he hear the sounds he was expecting to hear. Instead, Gabimaru heard even breathing come from the living room, and when he reached the door, still on edge, he found Yui sitting in an awkward position at their table, her head resting on the tabletop in sleep. Her arm was stretched out next to her head, her fingers still loosely wrapped around a bowl of food that stood on the other side of the table where Gabimaru usually sat.
Gabimaru didn’t move and simply looked from over where he was standing, committing the scene to memory. When he thought that he had done well enough to remember every detail, he crouched down where he was standing, put his bundle of clothes onto the ground, and inched forward in his crouched position, careful to move with as little sound as possible so as not to wake Yui accidentally.
He stopped next to her, eyes unwaveringly on her face. She had fallen asleep on the good side of her face, which was buried in the folds of her sleeves, and her hair was brushed back so that her burn scar wasn’t covered by it. Gabimaru could see how her eyes moved behind her closed eyelids, and Yui moved slightly as her chest rose and fell in the rhythm of her breaths.
She must’ve been waiting for him to return but sat down to eat by herself when he had taken so long and fallen asleep. But Gabimaru had taken so long for this mission because he had been extra cautious at every step, making sure that not only did he not get injured, but also that he killed in ways that wouldn’t stain his clothes. Gabimaru hated seeing Yui’s pained look, followed by a brave smile whenever he sported new cuts or injuries and needed to be treated by her gentle hands.
“This one will leave a scar,” Yui had said last time, softly pressing her fingertips against the freshly applied bandage over a gash that reached from his right collarbone down to his hipbone. A souvenir from a strike he’d managed to dodge by a big jump back, or else it would’ve split him in half.
“Scars are a good thing,” Gabimaru had said and reached up to close his hand around Yui’s, pressing her palm against his chest as he held firmly onto her wrist. Her heart had been beating at the speed of fire licking up dry wood. She had lifted her head and looked at him with eyes of the colour of warm wood - home. This was something no fire would ever be able to burn, no matter how much the village chief would ever dare to try. Gabimaru would make sure of it.
“How so?” she had asked.
“They are proof of hardship that you’ve survived. They are the trophies of a warrior.” But even as he had been saying it, Gabimaru had felt foolish. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt in the first place, not when it was so important not to.
Following a whim, Gabimaru sank to his knees and slowly leaned forward, closer to sleeping Yui until he hovered so close to her cheek that he could see his breath move the thin hair at her hairline. His body quivered, not from the exertion of holding himself at an angle like this, but from feeling out of his depth.
Was this what an ordinary person would do? It certainly was what Yui did when he came home. A kiss, a cheerful welcome. One of those things, Gabimaru could return. Could he?
He lowered his head as slowly as clouds moved across the heaven, afraid to breathe in a fear he couldn’t name, and placed the softest of kisses on the spot just below Yui’s brow. Gabimaru snapped back and found himself sitting on his heels several steps away from the table, arms wrapped around himself, waiting for what was about to happen.
Nothing happened.
Yui kept breathing evenly, Gabimaru’s heart kept beating, the house - home - kept smelling like fresh laundry. Everything was normal. So Gabimaru relaxed his shoulders and inched closer to his wife again, feeling foolish for his behaviour. Foolish for how his cheeks burned and how elated and jittery he felt. Foolish for the fingers tracing the scar from his collarbone down to his chest up and down and up again. Even more foolish for his desire to kiss Yui’s face once more.
What should he do?
For once, he didn’t know.
“Yui,” Gabimaru called and extended a hand. In a situation like this, Yui knew what to do. Yui knew what to say. He needed to ask her. “Yui, wake up. Yui.”
At the sound of his voice, she stirred, her eyes fluttering open. Slowly but still half-asleep, Yui pulled back and sat up, blinking at Gabimaru with a removed look on her face.
“Gabimaru?” she asked and lifted an arm to rub at her good eye, her voice drowsy like Gabimaru rarely heard it in the morning. Then, seeing him crouched next to the table with half-lifted arm, understanding hit her, and Yui slapped her hands in front of her mouth.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, fully awake, the noise muffled by her hands. “You’re back already! I have fallen asleep!”
“I’m back,” Gabimaru echoed in affirmation, his blush deepening. Yui immediately wanted to jump to her feet and leave the table, saying that she needed to warm up the food for Gabimaru and asking whether he could wait shortly, but he instinctively grabbed her by the wrist and stopped her from getting up.
“Gabimaru?” Half-standing like this, Yui was taller than crouching him, her naval at the height of his head, but even if they had been at eye-level, Gabimaru doubted he would’ve managed to meet her eyes. He swallowed dryly.
“Yui, I have questions,” Gabimaru said and started worrying his bottom lip, staring anywhere without seeing any of it. He was focused on where his thumb rested against Yui’s strong pulse on the soft inside of her wrist, focused on its rhythmic beat.
“Alright. But first -”
Yui sank back down to sit again and closed the distance between them until their knees touched, sending an electric bolt through Gabimaru’s entire body that momentarily made his hair stand at end due to its intensity. At least that’s what blind Gabimaru assumed until he unexpectedly felt the soft touch of lips against his cheek, Yui’s hair tickling his bare shoulder. He turned his head, wide-eyed, but Yui didn’t see it because she wrapped her free arm around her husband and pulled him into a hug.
“Welcome home, Gabimaru,” Yui said.